


leftovers

by kosy



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: All Seasons, Drabbles, Extensive Use Of Reblase, F/F, Fluff and Angst, More Tags In Author's Notes, The Inherent Romance Of Uhhhhh. Romance, i mean it's a prompt fill collection idk what to tell you, just some bite sized fics!, other characters do show up but i don't want to clog their tags, pov you open the fridge looking for something to eat for dinner, prompt collection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28404759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kosy/pseuds/kosy
Summary: Scrap scenes for some prompts. A good filling meal could probably be made out of this somehow.
Relationships: Jaylen Hotdogfingers/Sutton Dreamy
Kudos: 12





	1. things you said with no space between us

**Author's Note:**

> i really truly could not justify posting all six of these as separate fics after having already tossed them up on tumblr so. here we are! i got a ton of prompts for this pairing specifically and figured they should all go in one place. general warning for swearing throughout these minifics.
> 
> written for the prompt "16. things you said with no space between us" sent in by waveridden!
> 
> set directly post-s6 resurrection. enjoy the read!

It’s midnight and the plane is ominously quiet but not silent because planes are never silent. There’s always the persistent roar of the engine, the constant sourceless rattle. Most people are asleep. Or watching movies, staring blank and weary-eyed at the screens just a little too close and a little too bright. Nobody’s talking. It’s hard to feel like there’s much to talk about on an airplane. Every cross-country plane ride feels like a tiny hell, five hours long and confined only to the individual. Conversation dies. Everyone suffers alone. 

Then again, maybe Dreamy just hates planes. 

She shifts in her seat, curls and uncurls her fingers against the plastic shell of the armrest. It’s gray. Maybe blue? Hard to say. The lights are dim in here. Late-night plane rides feel only semireal in the best of circumstances, which these aren’t, and the apocalyptic dull yellow lighting doesn’t help much. 

Jaylen stirs. She’s trying to pretend like she’s asleep and has been for about an hour now, forehead dropped down to Dreamy’s shoulder, but she’s caught glimpses of her eyes when the plane shakes and they’re wide open, enough to see the whites of them. Her hands are tensed where they rest on top of Sutton’s thighs. Shadows of veins and tendons pulled tight against skin that show even here in the dark. 

She’s trying to pretend like she’s asleep but she’s a bad liar, she always has been, so Dreamy sighs and leans down and presses a kiss to her hairline. 

“I know you’re awake,” she murmurs, nose buried in her curls. Keeps quiet so the people across the aisle won’t hear even if she’s pretty sure they’re actually asleep instead of just faking it. 

She’s close enough to hear the sharp intake of breath. Sounds more like the beginning of a sob than anything else, a stabbing, hoarse thing, but when Jaylen lifts her head to look at her, her eyes are dry and hard. Mostly just tired, though. She looks so damn tired.

“Yeah,” Jaylen mutters. “Well. You probably wouldn’t be sleeping either, all things considered.” Her gaze drifts down to her own hands, the rough palms and torn fingernails, raw from where she clawed herself out of the ground. Dreamy blinks and they’re the same as they always were and always will be. Tan and freckled, a pale scar on the back of her right hand. The clean pale sheen of bone that shows through at her jaw and catches the sick yellow of the overhead lights is just another a metaphor made briefly flesh. 

“Can’t sleep or don’t want to?” Dreamy asks, and Jaylen just shrugs. She nods, tries not to look too worried, maybe halfway succeeds. “That’s—that’s okay.” 

_She’s not going to be the same as she was,_ she reminds herself. She came back from the dead, for fuck’s sake. If she came back warped that was to be expected, that was the way these things worked, that was the twist they all saw coming but that nobody was willing to talk about, that was—not _normal._ Not normal. Nothing about this was normal, but. It was normal. In its own cruel way. She should know better than to be surprised about that by now. 

“Can we not talk about it?” Jaylen says abruptly, cold. Probably meant for it to come out less harsh than it did, but Dreamy really wouldn’t have any way of being sure. She certainly isn’t going to ask. 

“Of course.” She hesitates, then bursts out: “Jay, I don’t want things to be—” 

“What, _weird?_ _Different?”_ She laughs incredulously, too loud for the moment it’s in, and Dreamy winces, and Jaylen barrels on heedless. “Sorry, babe, but you’re shit outta luck there—” 

“You didn’t let me finish.” 

Jaylen’s staring at her, all that directionless anger distorting her face into something that’s still her and isn’t wrong but is, it has to be. Staring at her and furious and still not moving away, still keeping herself upright with the support of a hand on Dreamy’s leg. She’s not going anywhere, Dreamy realizes, not really, and somehow this is a comfort. 

“I didn’t.” It’s half a question. 

“I don’t want things to be. I don’t know.” She pauses long enough that Jaylen furrows her brows in silent question, and Dreamy’s mouth pulls sideways. “I don’t know. I don’t want to fight just because we can, that’s all.” 

“Sure.” She fidgets with her fingers, digging her nail into her cuticle. “Thanks for letting me stay with you.” Dreamy can’t tell if she’s grateful or just looking for something to say, but. Either way.

“You didn’t have anywhere else to go,” Dreamy points out, looking away. Gazes down at the bland pattern of the carpet by her feet because at least it’s something. “It seemed like...” 

“Thanks anyway,” Jaylen says. “It’s, you know. At least it’s something.” 

Dreamy nods, worries at her lower lip. “It’s not—I want you there. Here. With me. I wouldn’t want you anywhere else. That’s what I’m trying to say.” Jaylen scans her face, then she nods too, and Dreamy can feel the soft exhale on her cheek. _What are we now anyway after all this_ is the world’s most useless, inane question so she doesn’t ask it. She doesn’t ask anything, despite it all. She lets Jaylen’s head drop back down to her shoulder and she wraps an arm around Jaylen’s side and they don’t put up the armrest between them and they don’t take off their seatbelts, just contort themselves into a position that is almost but never quite comfortable. She leans her head back against the headrest and stares straight ahead at the endless rows of seats and doesn’t blink until her eyes burn. She doesn’t have to look down to know that Jaylen is doing the same. 


	2. things you said when we were on top of the world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> October’s nice in San Francisco.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the prompt "things you said when we were on top of the world," sent in by socksmaybe on tumblr (crookedsaint on here).
> 
> set on day 99 of season 11, which was the normal one with sun 2 and black hole weather. dreamy's on the fridays at this point and jaylen's on the lovers. enjoy!!

October’s nice in San Francisco. She’s used to the perpetual chill of Seattle—she doubts it was cold there in the summer at the very least, but in her mind it’s always gonna be drizzling and gray and overcast, just enough to make you shiver in your flannel—so the warmth of the city while the rest of the world slides haltingly into autumn is a welcome if unnatural relief. The fog always lifts by the time the day’s started. Not too much rain. It’s just _nice,_ and it makes the final games a hell of a lot more enjoyable. 

It’s the first time in years that Jaylen hasn’t made it to the playoffs. The fact doesn’t disappoint her. Maybe it should. She can’t really bring herself to care either way. 

At any rate the last game of the regular season is played in weather that would be perfect were it not for the black hole hanging over the field, vast and humming and so dark it hurts to look at. But that hardly even registers anymore. Easy enough to just close your eyes and enjoy the balmy 62°F weather, slight breeze from the southwest, et cetera. She’s not paying much attention. It’s a Fridays-Lovers game anyway, so it’s not like there’s a whole lot of riveting athletic skill on display out there. 

Look, she pitched her last game on Day 96; the Fridays and the Lovers were both in partytime by Day 97; it’s been a rough decade; she figures she’s earned a fuckin’ break. Sue her. They should be glad she bothered to show up for the Day 99 game in the first place.

Honestly she probably _wouldn’t_ have shown up—she doesn’t usually go to games she isn’t pitching unless she feels like hanging out in a screaming overenthusiastic clump of renfaire jocks, which is a rare desire for her—except that it’s the last game and Dreamy’s on the Fridays. So. She mostly just zones out staring at the field and refocuses whenever she hears the commentator say Dreamy’s name. 

_God,_ she wishes Kichiro would stop looking at her so fuckin’ smugly. 

It’s a good game, though, tense in a fun way. She finds herself paying attention without even meaning to. The thing is, neither of them have scored high enough for any black hole bullshit to ruin it. Instead they’re locked in a 4-4 tie into the 11th inning. It’s the kind of thing blaseball players really live for, even if the fans are bored by it to the point of vitriol—no danger of burning or feedbacking or reverb or getting your blood fucking eaten, just the easy joy of competing against a team you’re evenly matched with. Defenders and batters and pitchers all pretty much on the same footing. It makes for a good sendoff into. Whatever’s coming next. 

Dreamy’s up at bat now, though, so she shakes herself out of her thoughts. People are chanting her name, and, sitting in the dugout, Jaylen’s close enough to see the tiny smile that tugs her mouth sideways, just for a second. She smiles too. 

First, the flinch—she still thinks it’s just fucking cruel to count that as a strike—and then Dreamy’s hitting a single, a beautiful arc up into somewhere in the outfield. Jaylen is the only one in the dugout clapping. Which makes sense. Obviously. But she’s annoyed about it anyway. 

Anyway the crowd’s cheering thunderously, and that’s more than enough. And sure, Dreamy’s out on fielder’s choice the next time somebody gets on base, but then Christian Combs hits a double and Alyssa Harrell makes it home and then it’s Shame, and the Fridays win the last regular season game in the foreseeable future. Jaylen cheers again, the other Lovers pitchers in the dugout give her dirty looks, she rolls her eyes and wanders out on the field to find Dreamy, and. That’s it, she guesses. Game over or whatever. 

Dreamy’s by the Fridays dugout, leaning on her bat and talking to Nagomi, who is, for the record, still fucking terrifying, especially now that she’s got the massive crab carapace and claws bursting from most of her visible flesh. They’re both smiling as Dreamy talks, though, her grin easy and bright, and Nagomi’s small and secret. Then again, Jaylen figures not a lot of people get to see Nagomi smile at all. So it’s not nothing. 

She waits at the edge of the conversation while the field fills up with fans and players, gathering in groups to congratulate each other or catch up or talk trash. Or whatever. She doesn’t pay much attention to that kinda thing unless it involves her. 

Soon enough, Nagomi’s clapping Dreamy on the arm and turning to go, probably to talk to Montgomery. Jaylen gives her a friendly nod, which is more than she’d bother to do for most people, and to her surprise, Nagomi actually nods back, expression guarded but at least not outright hostile. 

“See?” Dreamy grins once she’s gone. “She doesn’t hate you.” 

“Yes she does,” Jaylen responds on pure instinct. Dreamy rolls her eyes, and Jaylen laughs. “Good game, by the way.” 

“I didn’t even score,” she complains. 

“Like you care. Plus, you still got us in the end.” 

She snorts. “Yeah. I can’t believe I’m on the _Fridays_ and my team’s still kicking your team’s ass. Some things never change.” 

“1 out of 3 games isn’t that bad!” Jaylen protests. “And, look, the Crabs didn’t _always_ beat the Garages—”

“Factually untrue.” 

“Shut up,” she says, because she can’t really argue with that. 

Dreamy just laughs, nudging her with a shoulder. “Pretty good game to go out on, though.” 

Jaylen sways against her just a little, looks out at the field. “Yeah, it really was.” Out there, people are crashing together into hugs, laughing. _Good game,_ she thinks again. 

“I do wish you could’ve pitched against us at least once,” she says, leaning into her too. 

She sighs, lets herself relax against Dreamy’s side. “Me too, but I figure there’s plenty of time for that next season, if the schedules line up right. I mean, whenever next season is.” 

A toneless hum, considering. “Yeah. Guess we don’t know, do we?” 

“Not a whole lot we can do besides wait.” 

Across the field, Kichiro’s crouched in front of some kid and she’s signing a blaseball, beaming down at them. They’ve got a child-sized Lovers hat shoved down over thick wavy hair and when she hands the ball back to them, they’re grinning so hard it looks painful. It occurs to Jaylen suddenly that people must grow up watching this game. Watching _them._ And, God, that kid’s gonna get older and vote on how they live and die but—

Jaylen takes a breath in, lets it out slow. _But for now they’re just a kid._ They’re just a kid watching a game. They have fun. They eat too many sweets from the snack shack. They learn the players’ names, figure out who’s good and who isn’t but probably love them all anyway. They root for the home team. They get their little blaseball signed by their favorite batter after the game. They go home, and they never once think about fire. 

Dreamy follows her gaze to where Kichiro’s tugging the kid’s hat down and sending them off with a gentle slap on the shoulder, waving at the parents. “You know, I think I forget sometimes.” 

She looks over at her, tangles up their fingers together and squeezes once. “Forget what?” 

There’s a smile on her face, soft and unselfconscious, as she looks out at the field. “That I used to love this game. I mean, that’s why we all started this, right? We loved it so much. And—I don’t know. Days like this, I kind of think I still can.” 

The black hole above them has faded into a blue sky. The field is crowded and loud and exuberant. She and Dreamy can watch the postseason games from the stands, if they want, or on TV, or not at all. All around them players from both teams are chattering about what the end-of-season parties they’ll throw, how they’ll fill the empty years ahead of them, all the people they finally have the time to catch up with. Nobody died this season. Nobody was hurt. They all played blaseball. And now there’s nowhere Jaylen has to be. 

She thinks maybe she gets it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading <333


	3. things you said through your teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m gonna fucking _kill_ them,” Jaylen grits out, and it’s an effort to keep herself from pacing but she knows it won’t help anything, it’ll only stress Dreamy out, so instead she curls and uncurls her fingers, feels the bones in her hands pop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the prompt "things you said through your teeth," sent in by 919 on tumblr (tenworms on here).
> 
> warning for this one: along with the usual swearing, there's blood too by dint of this occurring just after dreamy was blooddrained (which i actually wrote a fic about that you can check out [right here!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27809209)) and arguing as a result of them both being under A Lot Of Stress, so that's worth knowing going in!
> 
> set in early season 10.

“I’m gonna fucking _kill_ them,” Jaylen grits out, and it’s an effort to keep herself from pacing but she knows it won’t help anything, it’ll only stress Dreamy out, so instead she curls and uncurls her fingers, feels the bones in her hands pop. 

“Don’t do that,” Dreamy says wearily. 

“Seriously, who the fuck do they think they are?” she snaps, and, shit, now she _is_ pacing around the living room, so she forces herself to stop. Dreamy watches her impassively from the couch, head propped up on the armrest, which can’t be comfortable for her neck, so Jaylen sighs out a sharp breath and strides to the bedroom, grabs a pillow, and comes back. 

“Thanks,” she mumbles but doesn’t pick up her head. Hesitantly, Jaylen presses a hand to the back of Dreamy’s skull and lifts her head to slip the pillow under. Her arm’s in bandages, but they’re already soaking through red again. Fucking blooddrain weather, fucking siphons, fucking Combs Estes, fucking— 

“You’re seething again, babe,” Dreamy informs her, eyes closed. 

Jaylen sighs sharply. “I’m aware. Your bandages—” 

“Should probably change those, yeah.” 

“Jesus,” Jaylen mutters, and she goes to the bathroom to get the First Aid kit again. 

When she gets back, Dreamy’s got her legs tucked up to her chest and she’s elevating her arm on a kneecap, or at least trying to. It doesn’t look very comfortable. 

“Hi again.”

“Hi yourself,” Jaylen responds, and she wishes her voice weren’t as tight as it is. She kneels by the couch at her side, unwraps the bandages. When the wound’s revealed she wants to retch, even though she saw it just an hour ago. The uneven mess of tendon and torn skin and muscle. She can see the white glint of bone peeking through the red. It’ll heal by tomorrow’s game because Dreamy has to keep playing and that’s how it works, but. The pain sticks around. She picks up the fresh bandages and starts to wrap them around the ripped-up flesh. Makes sense that it’d be the dominant forearm. Based on the scoreboard, Estes was going for pitching stars. 

Dreamy winces, tugs her arm back a little. “Jay, you—” 

She’s pulling the gauze too tight. She pauses, blinks, swallows, tries to recollect herself. Then gets back to it. Dreamy resettles herself back against the cushions, closing her eyes again. 

Finally she bursts out, “How the fuck are you so _calm_ about this?”

Her eyes crack open and Jaylen notices for the first time that they’re red around the edges. “Well, one of us had to be. I figured it wasn’t going to be you.” 

“You just got your arm fucking pulverized by somebody’s teeth. You don’t have to be the _calm_ one in this situation, holy _shit,_ Dream—” 

“Would you describe yourself as calm right now, do you think?” Her voice is carefully measured but Jaylen’s not an idiot, she can’t miss the very real frustration burning underneath. “Because I wouldn’t. I’d say you’re losing your shit about the fact that I got hurt in a game _about_ getting hurt, and we can’t _both_ afford to go off the rails right now, so here we are.”

Jaylen laughs, incredulous and harsher than she meant to, as she finishes wrapping the wound. “Oh my God, your _fucking_ martyr complex—”

“It’s not a martyr complex, it’s common sense. And if anything you’re proving my point.” 

She breathes in deep. It feels like there’s smoke in her goddamn brain, hazy and thick and suffocating, and inhaling only makes it worse so she squeezes her eyes shut instead. 

“Sorry,” she manages to get out, opening her eyes again. “I shouldn’t be...” 

Dreamy shakes her head. “It’s fine.” But she just sounds tired. Jaylen tries not to hate herself about it. That’s not fucking useful right now. Right now Dreamy’s hurting and she needs to _do_ something about it. She’s had enough anger and self-pity and aimless hatred for a lifetime. 

“No, I am,” she says. Conscious effort to soften her voice there, and maybe it pays off because Dreamy relaxes just a little. Jaylen rubs her thumb over the knobbly bone of Dreamy’s wrist and hopes it’s soothing. “It was unfair of me to—” 

She snorts. “It’s how you are, Jay. I’m not—” 

“I’m not going to be angry at you for being mad at me,” Jaylen tells her quietly. “Just so you know. You’ve earned some anger. At everyone, honestly, this whole fucking world, but me especially. I’m kind of—” She waves a hand vaguely. 

“A disaster?” she suggests, lips tugging up at the corner.

“I think putting it that way is, like, _extremely_ generous,” she says, and Dreamy half-laughs. _You’re too good for me,_ she thinks but doesn’t bother even trying to say. If that was going to be what ended their relationship, they would have broken up in season seven. They’re here now. 

“Probably,” she agrees. “But that has yet to stop me.” 

“Well, thank God for that,” Jaylen grins. Tips her head. “Seriously, though, I wanna take care of you. Is there anything I can get you? I think there’s a bottle of Ibuprofen in the medicine cabinet. Or, like—they used to give me popcorn and shit when I got my blood drawn for high school blood drives. Something about blood sugar—”

“In a few minutes,” Dreamy murmurs, and she’s looking at Jaylen again, and it’s not the first time she’s looked at her today, but it’s different this time. Just different. “For now, would you just—?” 

“I’ll stay with you.” 

Dreamy turns her hand over and laces their fingers together and doesn’t say anything else. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading, i really appreciate it!


	4. things you said with too many miles between us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She thinks maybe she’s being unfair right now, but then again nothing is fair, so she might as well at least get the answers she wants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the prompt "15. things you said with too many miles between us," sent in by rogueumpire on tumblr (cryptidgay on here).
> 
> takes place just after season 7, just after jaylen has renegotiated her debt for the first time because her debt plotline lives in my brain rent free. enjoy!

“So I renegotiated,” Jaylen says in a rush the second Dreamy picks up the phone. 

Dreamy flops over onto her back in bed and stares up at her ceiling, dusky gray in the thin light from the streetlamps filtering in through the curtains. “I... what does that mean?” She doesn’t want to be nervous about it, she wants to trust that whatever it is Jaylen’s made the right choice, but. The track record of Jaylen’s choices over the last few months has been. Below average. 

A rueful chuckle. “Wish I knew.” 

“How the hell did you manage to _‘renegotiate’_ without knowing the terms of the deal? Or, God, at least what the deal _means.”_ She thinks maybe she’s being unfair right now, but then again nothing is fair, so she might as well at least get the answers she wants. 

Jaylen sighs, short and harsh, and it crackles over the phone. “I—look, I know what it means, I just don’t know what it does. I took what I could get, Sutton. It wouldn’t tell me anything. I just—”

“Jesus, Jay, what did you _do?”_ She chances a look over at the clock on her bedside table. The red glow of the numbers read out 3:57 AM. Almost 1 AM in Seattle, if that’s even where Jaylen is right now. 

“You know how I had a debt?” 

Dreamy snorts in spite of herself. “Yes. I would say I’m aware of it.” 

Jaylen laughs, and when she speaks again, she sounds like she’s surprised at herself for it too. “Just checking.” 

“What about it?” 

“Right. Well—yeah, I renegotiated it. The debt. Terms are different now.” 

Hope is—it’s not something you should experience when you live the way they do. But it curls in Dreamy’s chest anyway. Like many things in this world, it is alive when it shouldn’t be. Like many things in this world, Dreamy is grateful for that. 

“So your pitches won’t—?”

“Kill people anymore? As far as I can tell, no. It’d be kinda fucked up I went through all that and they still did.” 

Dreamy inhales, runs her thumbnail along the bottom hem of her shirt, tries to find some comfort in the texture of the fabric. “What do you mean by ‘went through all that’?” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Jaylen says softly. “I’ll be f—I mean, I’ll live.” 

“Jay. What did you do?” she repeats. 

Jaylen is silent for a long moment, long enough that Dreamy would be worried she’d hung up if she couldn’t still hear her breathing over the phone. It’s still comforting. To hear her so tangibly alive. 

“What I had to,” she finally murmurs, and the way she says it, it almost sounds like an apology. “Gotta give a little to get a little, babe. You know how this works. You know I’ll get there in the end.” 

“Yeah,” Dreamy says, and she closes her eyes and imagines she can hear Jaylen’s pulse over the line, steady and persistent and still real after everything else is gone. “Yeah. I do.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you!! i am simply. [thinks about them so very hard]


	5. things you said when you were scared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They were agonizingly practical about the whole affair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the prompt "18. things you said when you were scared," sent in by both goodwinmorin (incrediblyimpossible on here) and jhonii on tumblr! there was. truly an unfortunate amount of Fear Moments to choose from lol man these ppl live in an endless nightmare. anyway i'm thinking so so hard about ascension
> 
> takes place after the season 10 day x godfight, but before the season 10 election, when the crabs ascended and left dreamy behind.

They aren’t talking about it. 

To be fair, there’s nothing left to say here that they haven’t gone over before; they’ve walked this path enough to know every twist and turn and stray pebble. Nothing will be discovered. Nothing will be resolved. 

Dreamy’s already transferred legal ownership of the apartment over to Jaylen. Wrote up a will; there’s a copy folded into eighths on the bookshelf. Her clothes are neatly packed away in boxes to either be donated or shoved to the back of the closet. Her possessions too. A goodbye note, not to be read until after she’s gone, is lying on the nightstand unopened. 

They were agonizingly practical about the whole affair. They spent hours going over the options, hours putting her things in boxes and turning them over in their hands—Polaroids, novelty mugs, enamel pins. Novels she never got around to finishing. It felt wrong to perform a postmortem on a woman who was still kneeling at her side on the carpet, leafing through her anthologies of poems and reading the dogeared pages to her aloud, but they did it anyway because God, Jaylen knew she wouldn’t be able to do it alone. Not once she was gone.

So they _did_ talk about it, they talked about it until Jaylen’s chest tightened and she felt like she was going to be sick and the ground dropped out from beneath her feet and she had to leave the apartment for an hour and a half and she refused to explain why, and they’ve _been_ talking about it since the Crabs won the season eight championship, but they aren’t talking about it now and _that’s_ what’s killing her, that’s what’s wrong. Dreamy is in her arms tonight. Tomorrow night and every night after she won’t be. And they aren’t talking about it. 

What do you do when you know the exact date somebody you love will leave and never come back? The exact time, down to the minute? 

Neither of them are sleeping tonight. They’re clinging each other too closely for that, though Dreamy’s doing a better job of pretending, face pushed up into the crook of Jaylen’s neck. It’s the hands that give her away, though, cradling the back of her head and spread over a shoulderblade. She holds her with too much conscious gentleness. 

They still don’t know what Ascension does, Jaylen reminds herself hopelessly. _Go up or climb._ That’s the only explanation they have and it’s the dictionary definition. It doesn’t mean she’ll be gone. Just—

“Go to sleep, Jay,” Dreamy mumbles against her throat. 

“You don’t know that I’m awake,” she points out, half-smiling.

She huffs out a breath of a laugh, shakes her head. “I mean it. Get some rest.”

“I—” Jaylen worries at the inside of her cheek with her teeth. “I can’t. Not tonight.” Every time sleep had threatened, she’d forced her eyes back open.

“Me neither,” she admits. “But still.” 

Jaylen shrugs, shifts a little more upright, careful not to knock Dreamy away. “Well, if we’re _both_ not sleeping—” 

She lays a hand on her bicep and carefully pushes her back down to the pillows, then moves her palm to cup her cheek. “Jay,” she says softly. “I don’t want to cry tonight. I don’t want to be sad or angry or scared. I just wanna be here, okay?” 

“I don’t know how to not talk about it,” she says, and she despises the roughness of her voice, the way it catches on the edges of the words. 

“I know,” Dreamy says. “God knows it’s all I can think about too, but. I don’t want to spend tonight grieving my own—” She exhales hard. Death? Rebirth? Reward? They don’t even get to know how they’ll lose each other again. Only that they will. “I’ve had enough grief for a lifetime. I mourned you _twice,_ Jay."

Jaylen breathes in sharply. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I wish I’d—” 

“You couldn’t have done anything about it,” she murmurs, stroking a thumb over her cheekbone. 

“I _know._ That’s the part I—” She shakes her head. “God. Sorry. I’m not monologuing tonight. This isn’t about that.”

Dreamy snorts. “The restraint is appreciated.” 

“I do my best,” Jaylen grins, and that hurts so much worse than the grief, the fact that she can still smile but only for now— 

“I’m scared too,” Dreamy says suddenly, so quietly Jaylen almost thinks she misheard, but something inside her freezes. 

“Yeah?” she breathes. She doesn’t know what else to say. Never does in moments like these.

“I don’t want to leave here. I don’t want to leave you.” Dreamy’s not shaking in her arms but she looks close to it, so Jaylen gathers her closer, guides her head to rest below her jaw, runs a hand up and down her spine. 

“I’ll be alright,” Jaylen whispers. “I’ll make it through. ‘Til I see you again.” 

“Nobody knows if there’s even a way back from where I’m going.” 

She laughs, quiet in the dark. “I beat death twice. Ascension’s nothing, babe. I’ll find a way to get to you.”

“Don’t be mad at me, but I honestly can’t decide if that’s romantic or just stupid,” Dreamy mutters.

“Go with romantic,” she advises. “Lot more fun that way for both of us.” 

That finally pulls a quiet chuckle out of her, and she stretches up to press a soft, lingering kiss to Jaylen’s lips before sighing and dropping her head back down, eyes squeezed shut. “Fuck. I’m gonna miss you.”

"You too.” 

Jaylen stays quiet for a long while after that, tracing her fingers up and down Dreamy’s arm. She tells herself she isn’t trying to memorize what the coils of her hair feel like brushing the underside of her jaw, or the sound of her breathing when she’s balanced on the edge of sleep, or the way moonlight falls across her body when their curtains are left half-open, or the light touch of her fingertips where they rest against her scalp. She stares up at the ceiling so she doesn’t look at her. Or wonder about the last time she’ll get the chance to. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blaseball Is Several Hundred Tragedies In A Jersey


	6. things you said after you kissed me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Hey," Jaylen says, swaying on her feet, and Sutton stumbles to a stop just in front of her. "I'm back." Quite possibly the understatement of the century, but she lets it slide. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the prompt "14. things you said after you kissed me," sent in by catboydeicide (both on tumblr and on here)!
> 
> takes place directly after the season 10 day x godfight. the inherent romance of uhhhh [rifles frantically through notes] both getting fucked up by the same god? the inherent romance of refusing to ever really die? i dunno man enjoy this though

Sutton's not sure if she's allowed to be out on the field—probably not, she assumes—but everybody else is rushing in, the inevitable overwhelming press of a crowd whose vastness transcends numbers, so she figures she's probably in the clear. And it _is_ everyone, she realizes, no exaggeration. Every single person in the stadium is racing toward the torn-up expanse of grass. Their jubilant screams are deafening to the point that she can't even register them anymore, the world blending into the same dull roar of sound and color and light. 

She's staggering as she runs and her breath scrapes in her lungs and her limbs feel heavy and her head is pounding, she feels worse than she ever has in her entire life probably, but she doesn't think she could stop now even if she wanted to because still standing on the pitching mound is—

"Hey," Jaylen says, swaying on her feet, and Sutton stumbles to a stop just in front of her. "I'm back." Quite possibly the understatement of the century, but she lets it slide. 

Jaylen looks—well, there's no nice way to say it. She looks beat to shit, a split lip and a black eye and scraped-up skin and a nosebleed so bad she's got blood down the front of her jersey, though it seems like the bleeding's stopped at least for now. She looks like she got feedbacked too many times, cells scrambled and rescrambled enough that they eventually got put together wrong in a way Sutton can’t put her finger on, like there was some mutation in a strand of DNA that only kept self-replicating. She looks still at least half-dead, three-quarters if Sutton tilts her head at the wrong angle, semi-skeletal and burning. 

Mostly, though, she just looks tired. 

"You look like hell," Sutton tells her anyway because at least that's something to say. 

Jaylen laughs, presses the heel of her palm to her own forehead hard. "Just got back, so. Figures." Her knuckles are bloody too. Sutton can't bring herself to laugh. 

"Yeah," she says instead. Hesitates. "Are you—?" 

"I’m fine," Jaylen cuts her off. "Just—you know. Look, don't worry about me." She looks her up and down. "Are _you—?"_

"I'll live," she mutters. Somehow the worst part of it all is that she didn't even get to _do_ anything in the Crabs' fight against the Pods. Just watched Brock throw that single pitch, watched Quitter's bat collide with the ball, watched the world shatter into pieces around her. That was it. 

But it had been like standing too close to an explosion anyway: bright light, burning pain, shockwave, shrapnel. She'd staggered back to the dugout from the outfield near blinded, a ringing in her ears that'd drowned out anything else. The Crabs had all huddled together there on the floor for long moments afterward, any pretenses of dignity forgotten, arms and claws and other various appendages wrapped around each other as they stared out at the field and watched the dead rise again. 

When Jaylen had appeared on the pitching mound, bathed in eerie blue firelight, Sutton had nearly wept. 

She's still glowing a little bit even now, a residual—residual something. Sutton hesitates to call it holiness because nothing about this game is holy, but even exhausted and ripped to shreds Jaylen looks not of this world. Like the divine has brushed its fingers over her. 

Which Sutton will never tell her, because it'll go straight to her head. 

Instead, she steps closer, reaches an uncertain hand out toward her arm. She's half-expecting Jaylen to jerk away from her touch or for her hand to pass right through, but her fingers settle on skin, life-warm and sweaty and a little bloody, and Jaylen lets out a shuddering breath. Sutton thinks maybe she'd been afraid of the same thing. 

"I'm back," Jaylen says for the second time, more whisper than anything else. Awed. 

"Yeah," Sutton breathes, then lets out a strangled laugh that feels like it's been building for weeks now. "And if you die _again—"_

"I _won't!"_ she protests, indignant. "Also, in my defense, it's not like I was trying to the _first_ two times either." 

She squeezes her arm hard. _"Good._ I swear I'd resurrect you just to kill you again." 

Jaylen grins, tilting her head. "Seems counterproductive." 

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Sutton says, and kisses her. 

Jaylen melts into the kiss immediately like she’d been waiting for it—maybe she was—bringing one tentative hand up to Sutton’s jaw, other hand coming to rest against the small of her back. Everything else goes blurry at the edges: the noise of the crowd, the agony still wracking her body, the worry and pain and too-familiar grief that’s been knotted in her chest ever since Day 99 rolled over into Day 100. Even after death and gods and a decade-long nightmare that isn’t over yet and maybe never will be, there’s still this; there’s still them. 

They kiss without urgency. For one shining moment, it feels like there isn’t anything to worry about at all. 

After a few more drawn-out seconds, Jaylen pulls back but doesn’t go far, just tilting her forehead down to lean against Sutton’s, eyes still shut. She’s smiling, bright and giddy and unselfconscious, and Sutton loves her so much it feels like her heart is breaking open. 

“Sorry,” Jaylen grins. “I just realized my face is fucking _covered_ in blood.”

_“Just_ realized?” she laughs. “Jesus Christ, babe.” She’s got Jaylen’s blood on her own lips now too, but considering everything she can’t even bring herself to care. 

“Okay, listen, it’s been kind of a weird day.” 

“Well. Yeah,” Sutton admits. She wipes at Jaylen’s lip with her thumb but mostly just succeeds at smearing the blood around, and Jaylen smiles apologetically, finally opening her eyes again. For a long moment, they just look at each other as the world continues to rage on around them. 

“What now?” Jaylen asks. 

She snorts. “Well, a hospital sounds like a good idea.” 

A breath of a laugh. “It really, really does. But I mean—” 

“In general?” 

Jaylen rubs a thumb over her cheekbone, a gentle back-and-forth motion. “I guess, yeah.” 

Sutton exhales shakily, leans into Jaylen’s palm. “I don’t, um—I don’t know. I want to say that we just get to live now, but—” 

She sighs, eyes closing. “Right. Ascension. Elections. Everything.” The game will go on after this. It always does. 

“So I guess we’ll just figure it out,” she says, and Jaylen nods as if reassuring herself more than anything else. 

“We’ll figure it out,” she echoes. Makes a brave attempt at a smile. “We always seem to.” 

“For now, though.” She doesn’t finish the thought. She doesn’t need to. For now, though, they are still alive. They are weary and beaten down and broken past their limits, they passed the point of no return years ago if one ever existed at all, they are not the women they used to be and those women are lost to them entirely. But they are still alive, and they are holding each other, and for now that’s all they need. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for sticking around through all of this!! i've written truly excessive amounts of content for this pairing, and if this was your introduction to them, good news—i've got a 19.4k oneshot about their relationship from seasons 1-9 and a whole bunch of other oneshots to go along with it, plus several more in the works. again, if you feel inclined to leave comments or kudoses it'd mean a lot! thank you again! <3

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! i deeply appreciate any comments/kudos you're willing to leave. also, if you want to find me on tumblr (where i do art, write fic, and think about dreamy & jaylen Constantly) i'm @fourteenthidol. thank you again for coming by!


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